2013's Written Words

Hi there!

It has been a great couple of days because I got to eat delicious food in one of my favourite places in Kuala Terengganu, Tappers Caffé on the Block in Little Chinatown, and just now, I made [well, I helped more like it] a delicious apple crumble with custard sauce… but this post is not about food… or my appetite… or the fact that I will never reach the 50kg threshold even if I glut myself.

This post is about those blended corpses of trees with written tattoos on them, a.k.a. novels, my [other] favourite things to have. I’ve read a number of novels last year, and frankly, I still have a lot that I have not finished. Well, that’s what certain book addicts do, read old books and buy new ones in the same time. Why can’t books be cheap?! Why?!

Anyway, here are the novels:

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Okay, this is not a new novel, and honestly, I am not into Asian [or Asian-American] literature that much, but this is a novel that makes us think about what it means to be who we are in a fast-modernising world. Are we defined by our names, our background, or what we think of ourselves? Identity is more than a name.

John Green’s Looking for Alaska

I am an avid fan of Green. He’s an amazing storyteller, and Looking for Alaska proves that. An amalgam of Green’s great penchant of tingling humour and heart-wrenching prose, Looking for Alaska brings us honesty, joy, and at the end, teaches us that the ones we love do not always last long, but the love can. The last words we say mean a lot to everyone else.

G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen

This novel is just pure magic, a blend of modern computer science and Arabian myths. Alif the Unseen is a view into the tumultuous life in the Middle East, but at the same time, it’s also a window to the unknown, a world beyond our very senses. Sometimes, even the things that we have seen all this while can have more than one thousand and one meanings.

Tom Clempson’s One Seriously Messed-Up Weekend in the Otherwise Un-Messed-Up Life of Jack Samsonite

How’s that for a title? Fortunately, the hilarious and true-to-real-life anecdotes of the crude, crazy, and heroic (or so he thinks) Jack lives to the novel’s title. Really, the book is funny, and somehow, I think what Jack Samsonite does or thinks is reflective of many other inner workings of teenage boys.

Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything

Ezra, golden boy-turned-wreckage, what’s more symbolic of the teenager-y life that that? OK, this book is funny even if the plot’s a bit whimsical, but it shows that a glimmering past can be a detriment if you hold on to it when it cannot be gained anymore, but a tragedy that ends the past may not be the end of your life. Letting go is the best thing to do.

David Levithan’s Every Day

A resides in a human body for 24 hours and then moves on to another person, but A cannot control that. So, what’s A to do? And what’s A gonna go when A loves a girl? A is like us, we don’t know where our lives will take us, and oftentimes, we are even searching for the real meaning of our existence.

Okay, actually, I still have a few more books, but let's just stop here now. That's all folks!

2wentythre3

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling twenty-three~!

The Time

If all these stuffs from UiTM do not make me realise who I’m going to be soon, I don’t know what will. The time for me to be a teacher [okay, a trainee teacher] is coming fast. Three months in school practicing what a real teacher should do - all those admin work, teaching the students, becoming a supervisor for events or co-curricular activities - it is a challenge that I should take seriously, I will do my best to be a good teacher to all my students. English is an important subject in the Malaysian curriculum.

But hey, I must not forget to have fun with it right? Teaching is what makes me feel fun and accomplished. As a student before, I feel happy when I could comprehend and perform a task or an activity taught by my teacher. Now, I am pretty sure I will feel the same when I watch my students do the same. I know becoming a teacher is not an easy task, but I know I can do this. I’m going to do this!

Macbeth a la Mafiosi

So my class has finished our two years in Shah Alam, but not without a ‘bang’ – a bang in the form of a Shakespearian theatre that is. The theatre was a part of the assessments for Introduction to Shakespeare, but I’ll say, we had fun doing it. I really did. We did a Mafiosi version of Macbeth, interspersed with references to Thor. We even made Mjolnir for Heaven’s sake. Haha~If there is one thing that I did not expect, it was that I exaggerated the way I said “my Padrinooooo~”. It made the audience laughed.

Anyway, I will always remember this. Besides, I have the video, so I can watch it again and again haha~

I made the poster~ Wheee

Told ya~

I was Angus

As a bonus I edited this photo